remix notes

existing material something new

tools distributor
skills
copy
transform
combine

original
copy without making fundamental changes
covers knockoffs

legal remixing

familiar

adaptions

old into new
transformed
referenced subverted

appropriated
reshape culture

creation requires influence

preceded it
everything we make is a remix of existing creations our lives and the lives of others

we stand on the shoulders of giants -- issac newton
saturated

the act of creation is surrounded by a fog of myths. myths that creativity comes via inspiration
that original creations break the mold
that they are the products of geniuses
and appear as quickly as electricity can heat a filament

creativity

applying ordinary tools of thought to existing material

copying

and that's copying. Put simply, copying is how we learn. We can’t introduce anything new until we’re fluent in the language of our domain, and we do that through emulation.

copying knowledge and understanding

grounded in fundamentals copying

transformation create something new

take an idea and create iterations

variations
time consuming tinkering breakthrough

These are all major advances, but they’re not original ideas so much as tipping points in a continuous line of invention by many different people.

But the most dramatic results can happen when ideas are combined. By connecting ideas together creative leaps can be made, producing some of history's biggest breakthroughs.

hit critical mass i

combined all these elements

 combination it incorporated that set the Mac on a path towards long-term success.

research and development
connectiveness
what if never developed?
different?
further behind?

major breakthrough

Whenever there’s a major breakthrough, there’s usually others on the same path. Maybe a bit behind, maybe not behind at all.

Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz both invented calculus around 1684.

The theory of evolution was proposed by Darwin, of course, but Alfred Russel Wallace had pretty much the same idea at pretty much the same time. And Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray filed patents for the telephone on the same day.

We call this multiple discovery — the same innovation emerging from different places. Science and invention is riddled with it, but it can also happen in the arts.


We’re all building with the same materials. And sometimes by coincidence we get similar results, but sometimes innovations just seem inevitable.

i invented nothing new

i simply assembled the discoveries of other men behind who were centuries of work. had i worked 50 for 10 or even 5 years before, i would have failed

so it is with every new thing progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready, and then it is inevitable

to teach that a comparatively few men are responsible for the greatest forward steps of mankind is the worst sort of nonsense -- henry ford

“I invented nothing new. I simply assembled the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work. Had I worked fifty or ten or even five years before, I would have failed. So it is with every new thing. Progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready, and then it is inevitable. To teach that a comparatively few men are responsible for the greatest forward steps of mankind is the worst sort of nonsense.”




right time at the right place

best adapted lifeforms proper

ideas behaviors skills

dominate ideas

property lots and boundaries

layered in
And the dominant ideas of our time are the memes that spread the most.
But ideas aren't so tidy. They're layered, they’re interwoven, they're tangled. And when the system conflicts with the reality... the system starts to fail.

But the growing dominance of the market economy, where the products of our intellectual labors are bought and sold, produced an unfortunate side-effect.

is price needs to cover not just the manufacturing cost, but also the cost of inventing the thing in the first place.

Now let's say a competitor starts manufacturing a copy of the invention. The competitor doesn't need to cover those development costs so his version can be cheaper.

The bottom line: original creations can’t compete with the price of copies.

Copyrights covered media; patents covered inventions. Both aimed to encourage the creation and proliferation of new ideas by providing a brief and limited period of exclusivity, a period where no one else could copy your work.

This gave creators a window in which to cover their investment and earn a profit. After that their work entered the public domain, where it could spread far and wide and be freely built upon.

a robust public domain, an affordable body of ideas, products, arts and entertainment available to all. The core belief was in the common good, what would benefit everyone.

ideas are a form of property, and this conviction would eventually yield a new term… intellectual property.

we hate losing what we've got. People tend to place a much higher value on losses than on gains. So the gains we get from copying the work of others don’t make a big impression, but when it’s our ideas being copied, we perceive this as a loss and we get territorial.

And lastly, Steve Jobs was sometimes boastful about Apple's history of copying.

But he harbored deep grudges against those who dared to copy Apple.

When we copy we justify it. When others copy we vilify it. Most of us have no problem with copying... as long as we're the ones doing it.
promote learning
encourage
better lives
incentivizing creativity

The exclusive rights these acts introduced were a compromise for a greater purpose. The intent was to better the lives of everyone by incentivizing creativity and producing a rich public domain, a shared pool of knowledge, open to all.


talented is work hard work


most promising circumstances present themselves

unconscious influence. ideas come from somewhere else
make up idea by yourself